Outsmart the Baby

I feel like the challenge the first year of parenthood was "keep the baby alive". Now, as we enter the second year of parenthood, I am starting to find that the challenge has become "figure the baby out (and outsmart him)".

Benjamin has been eating table foods for about 3 weeks now, and up until today, we would feed it to him with the spoon for the most part, we would also put pieces of food on his tray, one by one, that he'd pick up with his fingers. Over the last few days, he's been fussy at dinner, not wanting to eat, crying, turning his head, all those fun dramatical things. When I'd put food on his tray for him to pick up, he'd feed it to the dogs.

Today at lunch, he started showing out again, but I knew that he was hungry, so I was not going to give up (unlike last night when his dinner consisted of broccoli followed by pineapple and milk because he fed the meat and the potatoes to the dogs). As I was speaking with my mom over the Skype, I was holding his plate of food in front of him (instead of putting the food, piece by piece, on his tray). Next thing I knew, he was reaching for the food and feeding himself - on his own terms.

Today at dinner, I did the same thing. I held his plate in front of him and he ate everything, happy as can be. Sometimes he'd want to eat it with the spoon but for the most part he ate with his little hands, like a little savage.

Last night was tough - I felt so defeated that he "had won" and not eaten. Today at lunch though, I was determined to not let him win. I had to figure out what was the problem... The food wasn't too hot, it wasn't cold, it wasn't anything he hadn't eaten before, it wasn't bland... Then the light bulb came on and I remembered that at school they put his food on a plate and he eats everything on his own. So that's how I determined that he wanted to eat all by himself.

He is so strong willed and loud and dramatic that it is so easy to just give in - boil some pasta and feed him that followed by applesauce.

So tonight proved that apparently we have an independent, strong willed, borderline stubborn child. Who would have thought that a child of Norm's and mine would have all those traits? I guess we are about to start finding out what our parents went through while they were raising us...

Here is a fun collage of this morning, he was t:rying to yogurt

This is not how you yogurt, but he will figure it out.